What's faster for Graphics

[live4spd]

I'm sure this has been asked a jillion times but I'm a little out of the loop so humor me please!

I currently have a Dual p3 1.0Ghz system with a gig of ram and a Radeon 8500 RTL 64MB Card. Would a P4 or Athlon system be faster for mostly graphics work (Illustrator & Photoshop)? I do only a small amount of gaming Nightfire, Empire Earth so that is not a huge concern. I'm considering the 2.66 (2600XP) and 2.8 (2800XP) processors on a DDR mainboard. Not interested in paying for RDRAM.

What do you think?

 

[Smilin]

I'm not sure which is better for what you're doing but your memory choice kinda points you towards AMD. To get the absolute most out of intel you should be looking at 1066RDRAM...but a gig of it (the min for what you're doing) will cost a leg. Get a decent amd, and a shitload of really good memory - like a gig of some CAS2 PC3500 and you'll be good to go.

Also shoot for a dual ddr 400 mobo if you can...Anything to boost memory speed is going to help doing photowork.

 

[jjyiz28]

i may be wrong but i think major graphics program are made with sse2 support, something amd chips do not have. therefore for those particular programs, intel p4 chips will run faster than a comparable athlon chip.

 

[AnAndAustin]

RDRAM-PC1066 is SLOWER than Dual Channel DDR and a LOT more expensive and less flexible. Even single channel DDR333-PC2700 is pretty close to RDRAM-PC1066 and a LOT cheaper too. I thought AthlonXP TbredB used SSE2, or was that intended for Barton? Anyway little uses SSE2 and the P4's come for quite a price premium, I'd suggest AthlonXP but see how the prices compare, no need for Dual Channel DDR on AthlonXP as it simply doens't need that bandwidth to perform.

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: AnAndAustin
I thought AthlonXP TbredB used SSE2, or was that intended for Barton?

No, that's for the Athlon 64. Intel was claiming that they couldn't use it for awhile, but AMD won in the end. That's the only reason I remember that. I know that they couldn't implement it on any CPU released before Jan 1, '03.

Just fyi. Bye now.

 

[live4spd]

Well the fact is the price is really no issue. the Asus Nforce 2 board is like $145 as is the P4PE/l/SATA Asus board. And the 2.8 processors are each $380-394 each. So assuming I use DDR with each the price is a wash.